


summer, everlong.

by ohimonfire



Category: Chronicles of Prydain - Lloyd Alexander
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 16:40:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3775867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohimonfire/pseuds/ohimonfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>she, a wildly flickering bonfire, beckons him closer, closer, closer, and then—well, it's not safe to get too close, not with the grownups watching.</p>
            </blockquote>





	summer, everlong.

"Taran, come on! Did someone steal your feet?"

Eilonwy's singsong, half-mocking laugh peals through the air. He's running after her, trying to keep up. Though he's taller and stronger, he finds her hard to follow when she has the extra momentum of starting five seconds before he did.

Or maybe it's because he's finding it almost, well, enjoyable to lag behind her and look at her back as she runs. Her hair streams out behind her, shining bright and fieryred in the blaze of the midday summer sun. She, a wildly flickering bonfire, with every movement, every toss of the hair and every hurling of cruel, biting, spiteful words spat at him— for reasons, it seems to him, nonexistent— beckons him closer, closer, closer, and then—

Well, it's not safe to get too close, not with the grownups watching.

Taran might have been a little bit too caught up in his daydreaming; he trips and falls face first into the Hen's slop. Grinning a little, she reaches out with a laugh and heaves him up, pulling him closer, closer, closer— too close— and then, stumbling over each other's feet, they collapse onto the grass in a tangled heap.

Giggling, she lazily drapes himself over his body, nestling ohsoclose against his pounding chest. They stay like that for a while. He barely registers the scene— his fluttering heart, her hand tracing invisible patterns across his chest, the dew-covered grass cool and damp against his back, her warm body against his skin, quivering with fading excitement.

She gets up eventually, though, sort of. She's swinging herself up so that she sits on top of him, still tracing that invisible pattern, now giving him a wan smile.

"Come on, we'll be late for dinner. And we have to get you a new change of clothes..."

But neither of them move. Wide-eyed, he drinks in the scene to the erratic rhythm of his heaving lungs— her tongue perched teasingly in the corner of her mouth, her eyes gazing unblinkingly into his under her lazily-hooded lashes, her hair dangling down and brushing against his face. Slowly, she begins to smirk.

"Or. . ."

She's sliding in now, leaning closer, closer, closer, until only their breath separates them, her flaming hair cascading into his face, warm from the blazing sun. Her finger lazily traces its way up his chest, across his lips, until it comes to his cheek, her hand resting warm and caressing against his skin.

"Or," she repeats, tossing her hair behind her.

She's falling closer, until they're almost touching, closer, until they might as well be, closer, until there's no space between them and their lips begin to brush together and their eyes begin to flutter shut, and then— too close.

He is all too aware of her warm body pressed against his, of her swirling tongue in his mouth. He drinks in her warmth through her lips, hands tangled in her hair, hot and blazing beneath the burning sun, as she—

* * *

 

He wakes by himself. Dull, grey light filters through the room's windows. Beside him the sheets lay cool and untouched. He heaves himself out of bed and hobbles to the window, the cobblestone floor frigid beneath his aching feet. As he watches the snow swirl down from a colourless, empty heaven, he remembers that summer doesn't last forever here.

And maybe that was his mistake.


End file.
